Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Thoughts on Last Night’s Debate

In no particular order:

1. It
was better than the previous debate.

2. It
was still not very good.I have nothing against
interruptions and cross-talk; but interruptions and cross-talk work in a relatively
unscripted, normal-ish, conversational-style argument—NOT in a debate where the
moderator is timing everything down to the nonce, and trying to keep the
candidates on schedule like a dog-trainer attempting to corral a pair of overly
enthusiastic Golden Retrievers.

3. Apropos
the previous remark, I imagine if Lincoln and Douglas had gotten into
crosstalk, they would have been able to sort it out themselves, and not needed
an outside whistle-blower.(Yes, I know
it was the 1850s and it wasn’t a presidential election and people were better
trained rhetoricians with real short-term memories back then.It’s still my gold standard when I imagine
what’s about to happen every time I tune in to one of these slam-fests.Great expectations, mon frères; great expectations.)

4. Apropos
that previous remark, I have a proposal for how future presidential and
vice-presidential and in general public debates ought to go.

a.Longer response times (two minutes? how about
five?).

b.Single
response times that are interruption free.The candidates can wait to respond till the free-for-all (see below).If during one of these periods they HAVE to
interrupt something their opponent says to “correct” it, it just looks like (i)
they lack short-term memory; (ii) they lack self-restraint; (iii) they are a
cad; (iv) all of the above.The
moderator should announce this beforehand.

c.Free-for-alls alternating with the single response
times.This means the candidates can
shout at each other for ten minutes to get it all out of their systems.Good luck not looking (i) weak or (ii) a
jerk.Everyone who’s run in recent years
will need it.

d.NO SCRIPTED
QUESTIONS.Seriously, if the candidates
don’t know (i) what they want to talk about, (ii) what the important issues
of the day are, and (iii) what the public is curious to hear, SHOULD WE REALLY
BE ELECTING THEM?I thought not.Let the candidates figure these things out for
themselves, instead of giving them exactly 3 minutes and 25.87 seconds to talk about each
topic that the moderator and her skillful team have determined is on the menu
tonight.So maybe we get a debate that
talks only about jobs and abortion.Or a
debate where the conversation ends up being 90% nuclear weapons and 10% VA
funding.So what?We might actually get beyond talking points
then and have a substantive conversation.

e.But—but—but—talking points are all the public care
about now?

f.Oh really?Am
I not also the public?

g. Besides,
the public have Twitter and Facebook if they want their talking points.And trust me, the candidates can still get
out plenty of good (bad) lines in a format like the one I’m describing.They’ll just be forced to display their (lack
of?) intelligence as well.Win-win.

h.You
can have a moderator, but she’s strictly there to give the don’t-be-a-cad
introduction, look pretty, and keep her finger on the stopwatch/ding-dong-bell.If deemed necessary, bouncers may be retained
in the wings to separate the two candidates or silence them both, should their behavior
become excessively obnoxious.

i.So, summary of the Girl Who Was Saturday’s debate
format.Flip a coin to determine who
gets the first five minutes.Then it’s
five minutes per each candidate, followed by a ten minute free-for-all.Rinse and repeat ad nauseum, but ad less nauseum than anything we’ve seen in recent years.

ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN.It would be almost like watching the World
Series or something.Better, actually,
because no coaches to advise them during play.SERIOUSLY, THEY JUST TAKE TURNS AND CAN MAKE ANY MOVES THEY WANT.So maybe more like watching televised chess.BUT WITH YELLING. So, still, better?

5. If
you ever wanted to know why I don’t usually do posts as lists, this is why.

6. This
is possibly the most irritated and least linguistically polished post I have
done in a while.

7. But
maybe a little bit funny and sort of kind of true (insofar as a practical
proposal, as opposed to a theoretical statement, can be called “true”)?